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Wednesday, February 06, 2019

In one of the more pathetic twists in the Venezuelan crisis, Nicolás Maduro is pushing to have new legislative elections held as quickly as he can. The Constituent Assembly, which was originally created to take power away from the democratically elected legislature, wants yet another legislature as fast as humanly possible.

This is farce in motion. For the first time ever, the legislature under Juan Guaidó exercised significant political influence and Maduro et al are scared. Their response is to pretend it doesn't exist anymore. It's never been "relegitimated" and so new elections must be held.

The problem is that no one will recognize these elections. Like it or not, Guaidó's authority is now set and cannot be stripped from him.

This is about as dumb as you can get. Guaidó did not demand "elections." He demanded "presidential elections" and there is no lack of clarity on that point. This doesn't fool anyone.

More importantly, it won't have any substantive impact. Actually, no matter how fast they move the crisis may deepen before they can act. At the moment, aid is the center of controversy. If that sparks confrontation, then everything else stops.